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Most immigrants want to settle to Helsinki or some other area, where there is already too many people, instead of countryside. And although declining population does cause some problems, so does overpopulation. And there is already overpopulation, so decline of population to more tolerable level, is good thing.

Talking through your arse PS voter. Let’s see now if you are repeating urban myths about immigration that you heard down the pub and are repeating here as if they were told by Moses himself, or whether you actually have even the barest grasp of the topic you chose to lecture us about!

Question 1: what is the housing stock in Helsinki/Vantaa/Espoo? That means, available housing, both coming online in the next year, unoccupied current housing stock, and houses currently for sale or rent?

Question 2: Quantify ‘too many people’ living in Helsinki? Provide a serious study that has talked about Helsinki’s ‘overpopulation’ problems?

Question 3: Finns have been moving from the countryside to the cities in droves for the last 5 decades. If you cannot convince Finns to live in the countryside, why the hell would you expect immigrants to live there?

Question 4: What problems does ‘declining population’ [in the countryside, I presume] cause and how exactly are these solved by moving more immigrants to the countryside?

Question 5: Provide me with a single reputable source that describes Helsinki’s rather modest [by European capital standards] population of half a million people as ‘overpopulated’?

Question 6: What is the “decline of population to more tolerable level”? Put some numbers on this, if you can.

My guess is that you know as much about population issues as I do about rocket science! But, I’m waiting to hear you take up what would be a rather modest challenge for anyone who knows anything about urban/rural population issues!

Questions 1, 2, 5: Try following Finnish news. There has been many years talk about the lack of enough apartments in Helsinki and how that has caused the prices of apartments to rise extremely high. And if you haven’t been following news, try Google search with word asuntopula and Helsinki and then use Google Translate.

Question 3: If we cannot expect immigrants moving to countryside to save the countryside, then I guess we should dismiss ideas of getting immigrants to Finland in order to save countryside from decline.

Question 4: Even this opinion piece by Kansainvälinen Mikkeli ry mentioned some problems caused declining population. But in general, it causes economic problems as it is usually means that population tends to get older and retire, but there are less and less young people to work and bring money.

Question 5: Helsinki is geographically quite limited and there is serious lack of free space to build buildings, especially if we want to keep some park areas and not destroy some protected natural areas.

Quoestien 6: I guess you haven’t heard that overpopulation is not sustainable to the nature. This is especially if we continue to spend natural resources on current level, which is simply not possible.

For example, one important reason for population growth has been oil. Industrialisation happened to large part because we had oil and even fertilizers, which revolutionized food production, are made with oil. However, we cannot continue using oil this way forever. One reason is that oil sources are finite and largely unrenewable. The other reason is that carbon dioxide emissions are on unsustainable level.

At some point we just have to start to get by with less and less oil, whether or not we liked it. And I would rather see that at that point population size is at more sustainable level, because the other option is population declinge by enormous famines. And smaller population size would also help biodiversity of nature and there would be less pressure to destroy rainforests for agriculture.

Questions 1, 2, 5: Try following Finnish news. There has been many years talk about the lack of enough apartments in Helsinki and how that has caused the prices of apartments to rise extremely high. And if you haven’t been following news, try Google search with word asuntopula and Helsinki and then use Google Translate.

So, I call bullshit. If I ask you for specific figures, I do not expect to be told to check out some media stories! You either know about this topic or you don’t. Until you provide some kind of overall picture here, then all you say is at best anecdotal, and at worst, a very poor generalisation that has little or no value in a serious debate.

So far, all you’ve said is that there has been talk about ‘lack of apartments’. Pricing is not simply a product of population size: there is both the question of demand and the amount of capital that people can afford. Capital cities have always had high prices due to plenty of rich enough buyers and high demand. There is a limit to how much housing you have in the centre, but urban areas can and do grow and can meet growing demand.

Question 3: If we cannot expect immigrants moving to countryside to save the countryside, then I guess we should dismiss ideas of getting immigrants to Finland in order to save countryside from decline.

The problem of regionalisation and greying rural populations will not be solved by immigrants. But that doesn’t mean that immigrants cannot play a useful role in coping with an ageing population. The idea of ‘forcing’ anyone to live anywhere simply doesn’t and cannot work. Why you think that immigrants can just be dumped wherever, I don’t know.

So, in general, you have provided no factual evidence to even flesh out your arguments. Simply telling me that overpopulation is unsustainable is hardly educating me, is it, or showing that you are any way qualified to come to the ridiculously generalised conclusions that you have come to.

As for your little narrative about oil-dependency, again, you are just repeating vague media narratives. And you want to build immigration policy on these vague ‘media’ narratives? In other words, just like PS, you want a bunch of idiots with no expertise to try to make it up as they go along! Yeah, right!

It is true that you either know the facts or you don’t know them and you obviously don’t know them, if you claim that there is not severe lack of aparments in Helsinki. For example, the current Minister of Housing and Communications, Krista Kiuru, said that apartments being so expensive is now so bad crisis that it is threatening the economic growth of the whole country. And she is not the only one who says so as it is issue where there seems to be consensus. You are the only one I have heard, who claims that the lack of apartments and skyroketing prices because of that, is not a problem.

And are now claming that there isn’t overpopulation, that we are not running out of oil and that the current level of population and that natural resource consumption is sustainable? These are hard scientifical facts and not just some “vague media narratives”. Usually just some Tea party supporters and similar people believe that there is no climate change caused by carbon dioxide and some of them even believe that oil is not finite resource. I hope you aren’t one of those.

It is true that you either know the facts or you don’t know them and you obviously don’t know them, if you claim that there is not severe lack of aparments in Helsinki.

Well, I’m going to keep an open mind about it until you provide me with more than just what I assume is rumour and internet myths. I have pointed out several factors that need some explanation if we are to even begin to arrive at a clear picture of this issue – and you have done NOTHING to address those valid points. You have said nothing about empty housing stock, about construction, about affordable housing etc.

For example, the current Minister of Housing and Communications, Krista Kiuru, said that apartments being so expensive is now so bad crisis that it is threatening the economic growth of the whole country.

And yet this is NOT evidence about overpopulation, it is evidence of high property prices. Several factors effect house prices and the key one, and historically, Finland really should keep a lid on this one, is what Banks are willing to allow people to borrow by way of a mortgage. What is happening nowadays is that couples are combining fulltime salaries and using parental guarantees as a means of securing large mortgages. It is this willingess to take on large mortgages and the banks’ willingness to give them that sustains high prices. Finland already once fed a housing bubble by lending too much with insufficient security. But even with security, controlling prices in a free market is not easy, even though it is in the interest of the government to do so.

But hey, you don’t need to offer any explanations because your a PS Voter, and we all know that you just don’t know what the fuck you are talking about half the time!

And are now claming that there isn’t overpopulation, that we are not running out of oil and that the current level of population and that natural resource consumption is sustainable? These are hard scientifical facts and not just some “vague media narratives”.

Let’s be clear, what you gave were not facts. I didn’t see a single piece of evidence or numbers to back up what were otherwise very vague and generalised statements. You are providing an ‘evidence-less’ discussion. That is not how you make decisions in the modern world.

Finland is not going to be suffering ‘overpopulation’. In fact, the replacement rate is such that Finland is going to be suffering from a diminishing population in just a few years. Likewise, the dependency ratio means that fewer working people will have to sustain services for ever bigger populations of non-employed service users. ‘Overpopulation’ is not part of this debate or problem. In other parts of the world, it is, but not in Finland.

But idea of forcing people to learn an unuseful language in order to serve a minority is working solution

Yes. The words ‘force’ do not carry the same meaning. You are ‘forced’ to pay taxes. You are ‘forced’ to maintain a road-worthy vehicle, you are ‘forced’ to drive on the right, you are ‘forced’ to pay for goods that you purchase from a store. These are ‘compulsory’ obligations that come with citizenship. In a country that has two languages, then part of the obligations of citizenship involve knowing something of the ‘other’ home language.

That cannot be compared to a human right of being able to decide where you live within a country where you have citizenship or leave to stay. ‘Forcing’ someone to live somewhere is a clear breach of human rights, in a way that ‘compulsory’ education simply cannot be compared to. The fact you are even trying to compare them merely reveals you to be a simple fool, with probably low education and simplistic ideas about the world.

However, you do seem to have some delusions of grandeur, of being an intellectual fighting for ‘freedom’. Shame you never paid attention at school enough to understand what actual freedom entails.

Well, I’m going to keep an open mind about it until you provide me with more than just what I assume is rumour and internet myths.

If you would bother following Finnish news even now and then, you would know that lack of homes is generally accepted consensus view and it is not disputed in any parties as far as I know. I just quoted you the Housing and Communications minister, I can offer you official reports of the issue, references to scientific papers about overpopulation, climate change etc etc, but I don’t know why bother, as you seem to be willing to close your from the facts and call them just some rumours.

And yet this is NOT evidence about overpopulation, it is evidence of high property prices. Several factors effect house prices and the key one, and historically, Finland really should keep a lid on this one, is what Banks are willing to allow people to borrow by way of a mortgage.

It is example of local overpopulation. Of course the exact selling prices are influenced also by willingness of the banks to loan and the interest rates. However, even lower prices what is what tighter loaning and higher interest rates would cause, won’t remove the lack of enough apartments.

But hey, you don’t need to offer any explanations because your a PS Voter, and we all know that you just don’t know what the fuck you are talking about half the time!

Let’s be clear, what you gave were not facts. I didn’t see a single piece of evidence or numbers to back up what were otherwise very vague and generalised statements. You are providing an ‘evidence-less’ discussion. That is not how you make decisions in the modern world.

There is little need to talk about exact figures to you if you don’t accept things that are generally accepted scientific facts, like overpopulation, unsustainable consumption, finitenes of oil etc. You like call other persons ignorant although it is you who are disputing generally accepted scientific facts. A classic case of Dunning–Kruger effect.

Finland is not going to be suffering ‘overpopulation’. In fact, the replacement rate is such that Finland is going to be suffering from a diminishing population in just a few years.

If we consider what Finland would able to provide food and other things we nowadays like to have without oil, Finland has overpopulation. And some day we just have to live without much oil, because it will get harder and harder (and more expensive) to get oil as the oil oil reserves get smaller and smaller. There is reason why population size has grown so fast since we started to use oil, but that fun will not continue forever and it is good idea to try to get ready for the day when we have to face the inevitable.

That is also why I see it welcome that population size of Finland (as well as other countries) declines to more sustainable level. And although the one child policy of China has been harsh, I still think it is preferable to the level of overpopulation that would be without it.

Likewise, the dependency ratio means that fewer working people will have to sustain services for ever bigger populations of non-employed service users. ‘Overpopulation’ is not part of this debate or problem. In other parts of the world, it is, but not in Finland.

Dependency ratio tends to be change when there is changes in birth rates. And birth rates is essential question for overpopulation. Reducing overpopulation by reducing birth rates fast, will cause nasty problems in society, as we will se with the retirement of baby boom generation or with one child policy in China. However, I see these problems still preferable to population decline by famine, what is what will happen if we don’t get population size to sustainable level before oil supply gets very limited (or by miracle get something to replace the cheap oil).

I generally try to get my information from researchers and state institutions rather than news stories.

You have still failed miserably to demonstrate that you have done nothing more than pick up a bit of ‘news’ and assume that this makes you an expert on the topic. Clearly it doesn’t. Not only are you unaware of the facts, you seem to be unaware of your ignorance of the facts.

you would know that lack of homes is generally accepted consensus view and it is not disputed in any parties as far as I know.

And yet you provide no evidence to support this claim, even though you suggest it is a widespread view? Strange. Also, lack of homes does not equate directly with overpopulation. ‘Lack of homes’ might simply mean lack of affordable homes. But you won’t face even this very simple breakdown of the question. Why? Why are you so reluctant to explore evidence and details?

However, even lower prices what is what tighter loaning and higher interest rates would cause, won’t remove the lack of enough apartments.

Interesting notion. And your evidence? Oh, you don’t have any!

There is little need to talk about exact figures to you if you don’t accept things that are generally accepted scientific facts, like overpopulation, unsustainable consumption, finitenes of oil etc.

You made that up, PS voter. Nowhere did I dispute these ‘scientific facts’. Your use of ‘scientific’ is spurious, by the way. Overpopulation is more of a problem in certain parts of the world. It’s a not a ‘universal’ fact. Neither is sustainability – you cannot say that the entire economy is ‘unsustainable’. Parts of it is and parts are not. Likewise, we simply do not know what reserves of oil are available. New extraction techniques makes more and more oil available and new finds are being made all the time. Likewise, the move from an oil-dependent economy is not a matter of flicking a lightswitch – it involves all sorts of intermediary steps.

You cannot talk ‘exact figures’ because you don’t have any and never did have any. You talk through your arse. Worse still, you cannot be bothered to do any real homework, even when you are asked to do it.

That is also why I see it welcome that population size of Finland (as well as other countries) declines to more sustainable level.

And what is a ‘sustainable level’? That everyone that wants a flat in the centre of Helsinki can have one? That would be about 200,000 population then for the whole of Finland! 🙂 And when do we know that we have reached this ‘sustainable level’ that you are harking on about? Will you get a tingly feeling in your big toe? Be sure to tell us all! Be an awful shame if you ignored it and the population continued to decline!

Dependency ratio tends to be change when there is changes in birth rates.

Over the long-term. But the key factor affecting the dependency ratio in Finland is the over 65s, or actually, over 60s if you consider the average retirement age is just a little over 60 years. Adding significantly more babies will take at least 30 years to even out the effects. That too late. A high dependency ratio is simply financially unsustainable. The only answer in the immediate short term (15-20 years) will be immigration.

And birth rates is essential question for overpopulation

Well, actually, it’s the opposite. You want to reduce the population but that will only increase the dependency ratio in the longer term. Less babies now, less young dependents, but that also means an even bigger shortfall of taxpayers in another 20 years.

However, I see these problems still preferable to population decline by famine, what is what will happen if we don’t get population size to sustainable level before oil supply gets very limited (or by miracle get something to replace the cheap oil).

Now you are just ranting. Okay, you like to mention China – do you know anything about the one-child policy there? I ask this because I have worked with several researchers from China in the last two or three years in regard to aspects of the one-child policy. Let’s see if you can provide any facts about this issue????

In a country that has two languages, then part of the obligations of citizenship involve knowing something of the ‘other’ home language.

If you actually mean by “knowing” compulsory minority language classes and requirements of passing minority language test in univeristy, then what you said is non sequitur. There are many countries with more than one official language, but without compolsury learning of the minority language by gŕeat majority language speakers. Finland has been during most of the history of the country one of those countries. Neither official status of Swedish nor the constitution require compolsury Swedish to all students, which clearly shown by the history of Finland where Swedish did had the official status and we had constitution, but without compolsory Swedish which is a counterexample to your claim that official status of Swedish would somehow require forcing all Finnish students to learn Swedish.

You have still failed miserably to demonstrate that you have done nothing more than pick up a bit of ‘news’ and assume that this makes you an expert on the topic. Clearly it doesn’t. Not only are you unaware of the facts, you seem to be unaware of your ignorance of the facts.

It is you, who is ignorant on this issue, which is generally acknowledged in all political parties in Finland, which would be clear to you, if you would follow any Finnish news even cursorily. I have now presented you news and official report on issue. Do you have any evidence on your claim that contrary to news reports, government reports etc — the is actually not lack of apartments?

You made that up, PS voter. Nowhere did I dispute these ‘scientific facts’. Your use of ‘scientific’ is spurious, by the way. Overpopulation is more of a problem in certain parts of the world. It’s a not a ‘universal’ fact. Neither is sustainability – you cannot say that the entire economy is ‘unsustainable’. Parts of it is and parts are not. Likewise, we simply do not know what reserves of oil are available. New extraction techniques makes more and more oil available and new finds are being made all the time.

Well, to me your writings sound that you try to dispute generally accepted scientific facts by calling them vague media narratives, rumours etc. And overpopulation is problem that affects more or less the whole world, as people tend to consume non-local natural resources in most parts of world at levels that are unsustainable. And sustainability is more question of nature than economy, although it will have economic influences as well, as nature put limits to economy. However, no economical trick can overcome limits of nature or laws of nature.

And although we don’t know exact amounth of oil reserves, it is 100 % sure fact, that the reserves are finite. Infinite oil reserves would have infinite mass and physical experiments have shown that Earth has finite mass and not infinite. And somewhat better oil extraction techniques, some still unfound oil reserves etc don’t change the simple fact that oil reserves are limited even if we don’t know their exact size.

You seem to have quite limited vocabulary, when you have to use f-word constantly like that.

Over the long-term. But the key factor affecting the dependency ratio in Finland is the over 65s, or actually, over 60s if you consider the average retirement age is just a little over 60 years. Adding significantly more babies will take at least 30 years to even out the effects. That too late. A high dependency ratio is simply financially unsustainable. The only answer in the immediate short term (15-20 years) will be immigration.

Well, actually, it’s the opposite. You want to reduce the population but that will only increase the dependency ratio in the longer term. Less babies now, less young dependents, but that also means an even bigger shortfall of taxpayers in another 20 years.

As I have said that the retirement of baby boomers will be heavy economical burder, however I find that still preferable to overpopulation and I prefer to see decline of the population size.

I am not completely against work related immigration to Finland, but one has to be realistic with that. When the country has large amount unemployed Finns and immigrants already, if the new immigrants don’t have good education on a field where there plenty of free jobs, then the immigrant will quite likely just make dependency ratio worse. And especially for jobs where there isn’t high education level, it would be preferable to put first people who already live in this country to those jobs.

So, the report you produced only reinforced one of my first points to you, which was that the issue is not ‘overpopulation’ per se, but lack of available affordable housing.

You presented the problem as one of overpopulation, when in fact this report refers to väestönkasvu, i.e. population growth. It does not specifically say that the problem is too many people, but not enough housing. The question is therefore speed of development.

The government is in an awful bind here. They need to promote regionalisation, but then again, economic activity has often been centered close to major cities. And people have gone in search of the jobs. The one thing that will change this is if goverment leads a revolution in working from ‘home’. In fact, the government could be very revolutionary in opening ‘open offices’ in the rural areas where a government employee can book a generic work station that is at a local ‘multi-service centre’, where people can ‘work’ during the day, be ‘signed in’ through a key system and can access all of their necessary documents via an account on the government cloud. This is the future and Finland should start showing some vision.

I generally try to get my information from researchers and state institutions rather than news stories.

Well, that explains your ignorance.

1) Researchers usually provide information that supports the “facts” which the person/institute who ordered that research wants.

Just take an example about the research about nutrition. There are researches which say that fat is healthy and then there are researches which say that fat is unhealthy. Now, are you saying that you just pick those research results that suits your opinion?

1) Researchers usually provide information that supports the “facts” which the person/institute who ordered that research wants.

That’s simply not true. All researchers go through a ‘peer review’ process that is anonymised. It’s not perfect, but it does ensure that simply ‘biased’ research will get heavily criticised and will likely be rejected by scientific journals. The issue is that research moves knowledge forward, step by step.

Just take an example about the research about nutrition. There are researches which say that fat is healthy and then there are researches which say that fat is unhealthy. Now, are you saying that you just pick those research results that suits your opinion?

My ignorance, and then you give an example like this? lolol. Funny. There are two kinds of fat, one is healthy (polyunsaturated), the other is unhealthy (saturated)! If you read research on nutrition, you would know this. Also, it is a simple fact with the human body that many nutritional substances can have both positive and negative effects on the body, partly depending on dose and partly depending on genetic makeup. Alcohol is a classic example. If you expect ‘easy’ answers from scientists, you won’t get them.

That’s the problem with your world-view in general, though, isn’t it Farang – you expect and demand easy answers to many of life’s questions.

I’m surprised you said this. A week ago I asked you this questions: do you think that police statistics can be influenced by institutional racism?, to which you replied:

No.

I guess you didn’t remember that you thought that state institutions in Finland were supposed to be corrupt and providing biased information.

Just to be realistic, I think that statistics can be biased and research and in one sense, it is always biased in the sense that individuals will always bring beliefs and values to bear and they will be reflected both in what we choose to study and what we discover. Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations, the scientific and research method more than any other system for obtaining knowledge has safeguards against that, where criticism is rather encouraged than discouraged and where certain knowledge can become ‘accepted and verified’ facts.

Now you can call that ignorance but I prefer to think of it as the opposite, as a clear attempt to arrive at verifiable and useful knowledge.

You just proved you naivity and ignorance.

😀 😀 yeah, right! You just showed yourself up really bad and funny thing is, you don’t even realise it!

There are two kinds of fat, one is healthy (polyunsaturated), the other is unhealthy (saturated)! If you read research on nutrition, you would know this.

Here you try to take shortcuts but fail miserably.

1) We are not talking about unsaturated fat, there are no contradictions there.

2) It is the saturated fat which is now under debate, and you can find researches that says saturated fat is unhealthy and researches that says saturated fat is healthy.

3) If you would have paid attention to this nutrition discussion, you would have known this. Yet you took the easy way and introduced the unsaturated fat and tried to use that as an easy explanation to escape the debate.

Now that it’s made clear to you, please answer:

How do you explain the contradicting researches? The only possible explanation is that other researchers are either mistaken or corrupted. What is your explanatation?

2) It is the saturated fat which is now under debate, and you can find researches that says saturated fat is unhealthy and researches that says saturated fat is healthy.

That’s not true. There is a general conscensus in the health field that a minimum level of saturated fat is useful for the body, and at that level you can call it ‘healthy’. Howeer, the vast majority of diets today are TOO HIGH in saturated fats. The advice to cut back on high saturated fat foods still stands.

No researcher will say in some kind of black and white way that ‘saturated fat is healthy’, without qualifying the statement. NONE. Media outlets on the other hand are notoriously bad in reporting responsibly about nutrition, especially as there is a lot of money to be made in providing stories related to nutrition. The media love a story that says ‘everything you know about saturated fat is wrong’, but dig deeper and you realise that the idea of researchers contradicting earlier advice is just not true. The only thing that has changed is that we understand better these days what a healthy level of saturated fat is. It was never about completely avoiding high fat foods, but eating them in a moderate way so that the overall saturated fat levels were kept low. In a society that has an obesity epidemic, that advice is even more important. And yet media channels routinely give out distorted and ill-informed advice. There are nutritional myths as well. At one point, eggs were ‘off the table’ because of high cholesterol, and then researchers have had to point out over and over that dietary cholesterol and cholesterol synthesised by the body were different, that very little dietary cholesterol is absorbed by the body, but that the body makes higher levels of its own cholesterol based on the degree of saturated fat in the diet.

Just because you don’t pay attention to the details doesn’t mean that researchers are somehow in the wrong or that the message is contradictory. At the same time, some of these biology questions are complex, and yet the public still demands advice, even though we are still finding out more all the time. The best nutritional advice has been very consistent over the years, especially in Finland – low salt, low saturated fat and a balanced variety of foods with plenty of vegetables, fruits, berries, nuts and pulses. You can look for holes in that all you want, but it’s pretty fucking clear to me!

The only possible explanation is that other researchers are either mistaken or corrupted. What is your explanatation?

The explanation is simple. YOU don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, as usual. And as usual you present a distorted version of what the current state of ‘reality’ is, and a version of events that ONLY serves to support one of your crazy black and white conclusions that is simply untrue, i.e. that researchers are corrupted. You sound like you just escaped from an asylum! 😀

Mark, do you agree that in the medical field there exist corruption and lot of recommendations (vaccines, etc) are made with only purpose to increase sales of medicine manufacturers?

You clearly don’t know a thing about how the medical field works. All drug testing protocols are heavily monitored by national agencies that give licences to drugs after going through rigorous testing, which, once a drug is released onto the market, is also further monitored by independent agencies. Considering the number of drugs that make it to market, the number that are later withdrawn are very small, so safety is very good. But some things just don’t show up until after long-term studies, such as with the recent narcolepsy issue in Finland, where an additional substance combined with the vaccine has probably caused the problems. But vaccines is a very heavily monitored field and ‘corruption’ as you call it is extremely rare.

There are issues with drug prescription and commercial marketing. Medical doctors often attend paid-for seminars where drug companies heavily market their products, some of which are no more effective than cheaper generics. But nowadays in Finland, with the drug substitution programme, all customers are told about available cheaper generics that are just as effective as branded versions.

So, no, I really cannot accept your very generalised and paranoid view that the medical field is ‘corrupt’. But of course it is partly a commercial field and companies are highly competitive. The alternative is an unaffordable entirely government-funded program of research which is simply unsustainable. So, we make the best of the current system, with heavy monitoring and with the many safeguards in place. I think it is a kind of stupidity to say that the field is corrupt with only a vague sense of something not being perfect.